14th Annual Juried Reading and Awards

E. Ethelbert Miller , Final Judge

The 14th Annual Juried Reading's award ceremony took place at the Harold Washington Library, Chicago, on Saturday, April 26th, 2008. Literary Activist and award-winning poet E. Ethelbert Miller served as Final Judge for this year's competition. Upon completing his selections Miller commented of this year's field of submissions:

“A big city contest will always produce big city work.  No exceptions in 2008.”

First Place
Sara Parrell
Madison, WI

Second Place
Stacey Lynn Brown
Edwardsville, IL

Third Place
Susan Elbe
Madison, WI

      Finalists

T. Zachary Cotler
Iowa City, IA

Brett Foster
Wheaton, IL

Elizabeth Hoover
Bloomington, IN

Jennifer Perrine
Des Moines, IA

Amanda Rachelle Warren
Kalamazoo, MI

13th Annual Juried Reading and Awards

Jimmy Santiago Baca, Final Judge

The 13th Annual Juried Reading's award ceremony took place at the Harold Washington Library, Chicago, on Saturday, April 28th, 2007. American Book Award-winning poet Jimmy Santiago Baca served as Final Judge for this year's competition, and shares his thoughts on the experience with us here:

"Overall, I believe this particular competition is valuable. The Poetry Center in Chicago is one of the most vibrant and grounded forums in the country, and to be part of it in any way attests to the value of the poet's work."

First Place
Jennifer Key
Madison, WI

Second Place
Rebecca Dunham
Cedar Falls, IA

Third Place
Alinda Wasner
Lansing, MI

      Finalists

Marla Kay Houghteling
Harbor Springs, MI

Debra Marquart
Ames, IA

Roy Seeger
Kalamazoo, MI

Laura Van Prooyen
Brookfield, IL

Vallerie Martt Wallace
Chicago, IL

12th Annual Juried Reading and Awards

On April 29, the finalists for the 12th Annual Juried Reading converged in Chicago to attend an award ceremony at the Harold Washington Library. Billy Collins, former US poet Laureate, judged this year’s competition. This was his feedback:

“Judging the Poetry Center’s annual juried reading reminded me again of the profusion of written activity that takes place these days under the heading of Poetry. I read poems guided by memory, poems led by the imagination, poems in pursuit of a subject. Tones ranged from anger to pathos, from curiosity to wonderment. The best, for me, always delivered a sense that the poet cared more about the poem itself than about whatever it was that was being said. Poets are stylists, we might as well admit, who must wait for the next bit of ancient content to walk off the street into their salons and say ‘Make me look like a star’.”

Billy Collins, Final Judge

First Place
Sarah Fay
Chicago, IL

Second Place
Natalie Shapero
Columbus, OH

Third Place
Matt Sadler
Commerce, MI

      Finalists

Nicky Beer
Columbia, MO

Kate Fox
Columbus, OH

Mary Hawley
Chicago, IL

David Keeling
Chicago, IL

Allison Stine
Mansfield, OH

2005 11th Annual Juried Reading

Jorie Graham reflects on her experience as the Final Judge of the 11th Annual Juried Reading:

" Thanks for Letting me judge this contest. It is, as always, thrilling and surprising, and hard work. One has to give one's self over to another's voice, vision and sensibility, and that takes, for a while, the place of one's own inwardness. And yet there is always the miracle waiting: poetry. As if sprung yet again from its very origins. From where does it come, this sudden rightness and soul, voice, utterance, image, rhythm and intuition? So: to all the young, or not so young, poets, a great thank you for giving me yet again that sense of mystery, the feeling that one has lived an other's instant of perception of oneself. The Midwest has always been for me, a place peculiarly capable of producing such mystery. Its distance from the escape routes of oceans, its therefore more pronounced relationship to sky, and seasons, and often terrible fate of weather being very instructive and humbling to the soul. "
-- Jorie Graham, Final Judge

Finalists

Congrats to the poets who were selected by the blind jury and final judge Jorie Graham




11th Annual Juried Reading & Awards
@ the Chicago Public Library's Poetry Fest
Saturday, April 30, 2005, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Harold Washington Library Center, 400 South State Street
$2,000 in Prizes


11th Annual Juried Reading by the Finalists
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
Saturday, May 7, 2005, 2:00 p.m.

2005 Final Judge Jorie Graham
2005 Blind Jury: Kristy Bowen, Larry O. Dean and James Shea

In 2005, $2,000 in prizes will be awarded: $1000 first prize, $500 second prize, $250 third prize and $50 each to the remaining five finalists.

The Juried Reading is open to all Illinois poets, and the poets of Illinois' Neighboring states: Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin, who are unpublished or who have published no more than one full-length book of poetry, not including self-published books. You must be a current resident of these states to be elegible. All submissions are blind judged, meaning the jury and the final judge do not have access to any identifying information about the submitting poets.

Current employees, contract employees, board members and advisory board members of The Poetry Center of Chicago, their partners or spouses, and their immediate families are ineligible. Former students and immediate family of the final judge are also ineligible.

Click Here for Guidelines (text format)


2005 Final Judge Jorie Graham is the author of many poetry collections, including Never ; Swarm ; The Errancy ; The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Materialism ; Region of Unlikeness ; The End of Beauty ; Erosion ; and Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts. She has also edited two anthologies, Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the English Language (1996) and The Best American Poetry 1990.

2004 10th Annual Juried Reading

The city of Chicago and the State of Illinois have a splendid poetic tradition,
and it was delightfully unsurprising to see the evidence of continuity as represented
by these marvelous contest entries. What a diverse and provocative group of poems,
full of brio and dexterity, passion and intelligence. I am envious of the community
--or latent community-- these poets represent, and delighted that organizations
like the Poetry Center of Chicago work so hard to develop programs commensurate
with that communal energy. Congratulations to all for the inspiring reminder of poetry's
potential place of honor in the American cultural landscape.

-- Campbell McGrath, 10th Annual Juried Reading Final Judge

Nearly 300 Illinois poets submitted their work to the 10th Annual Juried Reading. The submissions were scored by a blind jury consisting of poets Eduardo Arocho, Quraysh Ali Lansana and Simone Muench. Top scoring entries were sent to Campbell McGrath for final judging and McGrath selected eight finalists as well as the first, second and third place poets. The winners will be announced during the 10th Annual Juried Reading and Awards Ceremony at the Chicago Public Library's Poetry Fest on April 17, 2004. Below you will find the faces of the eight Illinois poets who are this year's finalists. Click each image for a prevously unpublished poem by each and a short bio.

In 2004, $2,000 in prizes will be awarded: $1000 first prize, $500 second prize, $250 third prize and $50 each to the remaining five finalists.

The Juried Reading is open to all Illinois poets who are unpublished or who have published no more than one full-length book of poetry, not including self-published books. All submissions are blind judged, meaning the jury and the final judge do not have access to any identifying information about the submitting poets.

Click Here for Guidelines (text format)


2004 Final Judge Campbell McGrath is the author of five full-length collections: Florida Poems, Capitalism, American Noise, Spring Comes to Chicago, and Road Atlas. McGrath is the recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Genius award, the Kingsley Tufts Prize, the Cohen Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Witter-Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. McGrath was a longtime Chicago resident, and now lives in Miami Beach with his wife and two sons.

2003 9th Annual Juried Reading

250 Illinois poets submitted their work to the 9th Annual Juried Reading. The submissions were evaluated by a blind jury and then sent on to Anne Waldman for final judging. Waldman selected eight finalists as well as the first second and third place poets.

The winners were announced during the 9th Annual Juried Reading and Awards Ceremony at the Chicago Public Library's Poetry Fest on April 26, 2003.

Below you will find the faces of the eight Illinois poets who are this year's finalists. Click each image for a short bio and a previously unpublished poem.

David Bond	Mackenzie Lynn Carignan	Douglas S. Hahn
Pinckneyville, Illinois	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago, Illinois
Deborah Marcero	Jenn Morea	Simone Muench
Second Place	Third Place	First Place
Chicago, Illinois	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago, Illinois
Josie Raney	Jackie White
Chicago, Illinois	Warrenville, Illinois

Anne Waldman had this to say about Illinois' poets:
"A lively, impressive selection of poems, and for the most part all coming out of intimate worlds of thought, relationship and experience. It's as if, in light of all the disorder, chaos, war, and uncertainty in our world, poets need to refer to what they know best, which is their immediate interior/exterior realities. The poems cry out for safety, for grounding in luminous but ordinary detail."

Juried Reading & Awards During the Chicago Public Library's 2003 Poetry Fest April 26, 3:00-4:30 p.m., Auditorium, Lower Level. Harold Washington Library Center, 400 South State Street

2002 8th Annual Juried Reading Winners and Finalists

Congratulations to the following eight Illinois and Chicagoland poets:

Keith Driver, First Place
Simone Muench, Second Place
Kristy Bowen, Third Place

Finalists

David Bond, Allison K. Deputy, Susan Dickman, Cristina Lawrence, Leslie Williams

(click on a poet to read their poem and a bio)

270 Chicago and Illinois Poets submitted their best work to the 8th Annual Juried Reading. The Poets were selected by a jury and by final judge Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Tate. James Tate had this to say about all the participants in this year's Juried Reading:

"Reading The Poetry Center of Chicago’s poetry contest entries from all over the state of Illinois, I was struck, not just by the great diversity, which one would expect, but by the high level of accomplishment in so many different styles. There was a worldly, sophisticated refinement, both in subject matter and poetics, which quite impressed me."

The 8 finalists read their work at:

The Evanston Public Library on April 21, 2002 @ 2 p.m.
The Chicago Public Library's Harold Washington Center on April 24, 2002 @ 6 p.m.

Volunteer Juried Reading Committee Chair:
Special thanks to this year's volunteer blind jury Aaron Fagan, Sherrille D. Lamb, Catherine Crooke, Jeremy P. Bushnell, Scott Topper, Judith Valente.

2001 7th Annual Juried Reading Winners and Finalists

Congratulations to the following 12 Illinois Poets:

Mary Biddinger, First Place
Jim Fairhall, Second Place
Judith Valente, Third Place

(click on a poet to read their poem and a bio)

Finalists:

Jan Bottiglieri, Anne Dirks, Caroline A. Hemphill, Jacqueline Lalley, Christina Lovin, Erika Mikkalo, Patricia Monaghan, Constance M. Vogel, Yvonne Zipter.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners, selected by Chicago Poet Michael Anania, were announced at the Harold Washington Library Center on April 12, 2001.